


Mind Your Head

by DashFlintceschi



Series: Mythological Creatures Alphabet Challenge [8]
Category: Bring Me The Horizon, You Me At Six
Genre: Camping, Gen, abandoned hospital, headless horseman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 02:33:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2092371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bring Me The Horizon and You Me At Six go to explore a ghost town, but they get more than they bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> H is for Headless Horseman. St Dymphna is the patron saint of the mentally ill, for those wondering.

When Jordan emails Max, asking if the five of them want to go exploring a ghost town in East Sussex, they jump at the chance. They meet up with Jordan, his band mates, and Tom in Newhaven, and they make their way to Tide Mills together. It’s a bit of a trek, but Max mentioning that he has beer and weed in his bag keeps them motivated.

Lee had done some research, and they plan on staying in one of the abandoned holiday homes in the town, but as they approach, Dan notices a dilapidated, wooden building.

“What the fuck is that?” He asks, pointing, and they all squint at it.

“I think it’s the old hospital,” Lee replies, and Dan grins.

“I say we stay in the creepy, abandoned hospital,” he suggests, and they all consider it. When they seem to be deciding against it, Dan starts walking towards it, making chicken noises as he goes. None of them can let the insult stand, and hurry after him, as he knew they would. 

They wander around the hospital for a while, looking for a decent room to set up camp in, and of course, Dan talks them into settling in the creepiest room he can find. As soon as they have everything set up, Max starts handing out the beer, and hands the bag of weed to Oli to start rolling blunts. By the time it gets dark a few hours later, they’re drunk and high, but not enough so that they don’t groan and shout in disgust when Nicholls strolls over to a corner of the room and unzips his fly.

“That’s fuckin’ mingin’, mate, take it outside,” Tom demands, and Nicholls lets out a long suffering sigh as the others agree with Tom, zips his fly back up, and heads outside. He wanders a few feet away from the building, and does what he needs to do. He’s just zipped up and turned to go back in, when he hears a noise that makes him pause. It sounds like horse hooves. He’s about to turn, having realised that the noise is coming from behind him, when he hears a shrill ring, like a sword being unsheathed, and half a second later, he’s dead, his head resting on the ground a few feet from his body, surprise still on his face.

They’re starting to wonder what’s taking Nicholls so long, when they hear the pounding of hooves, a horse whinnying, then something soars through the glassless window and lands with a thud in the middle of them all. Vegan leans forward to get a better look, then lets out a scream and falls over himself as he scrambles backwards. They all quickly follow suit as they realise what they’re looking at, and scatter, running in opposite directions in their terror.

When Josh, Max and Dan stop running, clutching at their chests as they try to catch their breath, they listen closely, hoping they’ve gotten away. When they don’t hear anything for five minutes, they think they’re safe.

“Ok, we’re going to move quickly and quietly. We can’t go back for the others yet, the best thing we can do is get back to Newhaven and come back for them with as many police as we can get. We can’t draw any attention to ourselves, so walk quickly, but as quietly as possible, don’t talk unless you absolutely have to, and no lights, this is the one time it’s safer to move in the dark,” Dan tells them in a hoarse whisper, and they nod in agreement, then head towards Newhaven at a fast pace. They manage to get half a mile, but as they pass a cluster of trees, none of them notice the shadow emerge from the darkness. The first inkling that Dan has that anything might be wrong, is a thud behind him, quickly followed by Josh’s cry being cut off by a second thud. He doesn’t turn, doesn’t cry or plead or try to run, he just closes his eyes and accepts his fate as he hears the sword whistle through the air behind him.

By the time Oli makes it to Newhaven, the sun’s starting to come up, and several people on their way to work stop and gape as he stumbles down the main street, covered in blood splatters that aren’t his own, seemingly completely unaware of anything around him. A man in a suit hesitates, sets his briefcase down on the pavement, then slowly approaches him. He reaches out and touches Oli’s arm cautiously, springing back in fear as soon as his fingers brush Oli’s skin, and he starts screaming and thrashing hysterically. Someone runs to get a doctor, while someone phones the police, and Oli doesn’t stop screaming until the doctor gets there and enlists the help of two men to hold him down while he injects him with a mild sedative. Once he’s calmed, the police approach.

“I know it’s hard, son, but we need to know where the blood came from,” one of them asks gently, having figured out from Oli’s reaction that he hadn’t inflicted the injuries the blood had came from.

“All of them… All just… Gone…” He murmurs brokenly, eyes vacant. The policeman that had originally asked rests his hand on Oli’s forearm and shakes it slightly.

“Come on, son, I need you to focus and tell me what happened,” he insists, and Oli seems to come back to himself.

“We were camping in Tide Mills. He killed them all… He killed my baby brother… He didn’t have a head.”

“He decapitated your brother?” Oli shakes his head, hesitates, then nods.

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean Tommy. The guy that killed them… He didn’t have a head.”

They gape at him, trying to make sense of it. In the end, they decide that the sedative has made him confused, and allow him to be taken to the hospital while they head to Tide Mills to collect the bodies and evidence. Oli’s allowed to leave the hospital for the funerals, but his continued insistence that it was a headless horseman that killed them means that he’s sectioned under the Mental Health Act, so a psychiatric nurse comes to the funerals with him, and he’s transferred to a psychiatric hospital immediately after the last one. He spends the rest of his life in the hospital, gaining a reputation for being calm and silent, apart from when he occasionally glances out of a window and starts screaming, insisting that the horseman is out there, that he’s come back for him. No-one else ever sees him though, and he never comes into the hospital to get Oli. Oli assumes this is because he wants to torment him first, but he doesn’t realise that St. Dymphna mental hospital was once a church, so the hospital sits on hallowed ground, otherwise, Oli and everyone else in the hospital would be long since dead. Oli would have welcomed that, though, in the end.


End file.
